BloodLetting
by Emrys1
Summary: Dean runs into a little trouble. Sam has to come get him.


_Hi All-_

_Just a little story that popped in my head. Hope you like it! ~~Emrys_

_**Disclaimer: Supernatural does not belong to me in any way, shape, or form. It was created by Kripke...not me. It surely is the possession of the CW...not me. I am not making any profit from this story.**_

_**Damn.**_

**Blood Letting**

Dean stands on the bridge and looks over the water. He hears the rush of falls, but that could just be the sound that's been in his head for a while now. He squints his eyes, tries to focus. He sees water placidly moving. The water swirls and sparkles in the sun before it pours down into a gentle waterfall. Dean feels a small amount of relief when what he sees matches what he hears.

_Okay, _he thinks, _so it's not as bad as it feels._

That's when he sways and falls to one knee. Shortly afterwards, he vomits into the slow-moving water. The swirl of the water catches his mess, and the nausea becomes worse. He vomits again. The pain in his gut is bad.

When the spasms abate, when the nausea is tamped down and bearable, he grabs the side of the bridge and pulls himself up. He staggers, reels, and leans heavily against the metal bars separating him from safety and a drop into the water. The bridge metal is a weird, sickening green, but it's cool against his sweaty forehead. He's cold everywhere else, but his forehead burns. He leans into the metal. His sigh of relief is more like a groan.

"It's a little early in the day, ain't it, buddy?"

Dean turns toward the rough voice without completely lifting his forehead from the metal bar. Through blurry vision, he sees a man simply dressed in jeans, t-shirt, and a look of disdain. The man shakes his head, and continues on his way down the walkway that spans the short bridge.

"Thought this was supposed to be friendly Saugerties," Dean mutters, honestly confused. He remembers seeing a sign. It said, "Welcome to Friendly Saugerties." As far as Dean can tell, the sign is lying.

He needs to get off this bridge. It's small, but the town is smaller and the bridge seems to be a main way in and out. Dean doesn't want to be noticed. He needs to move.

He moves.

oOo

He's on a park bench. On the phone. He doesn't know how he got here. He's not even sure who he's talking to.

"Dean!"

Oh, Sammy. It's Sammy on the other side of the phone. Dean thought it might have been Dad.

"Dean, are you still with me?" Sam's voice is urgent. It makes Dean want to talk.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm here, Sam," he says through thick lips and chattering teeth. "I-I think I tried to call Dad. I don't think he answered."

A heavy and pointed silence pounds its way from the other side of the phone. Dean's confused. He doesn't understand what he said wrong.

"I'm sure I tried to-to call Dad first, S-sam," he says, trying to make things right. "I don't think I would have b-bothered you unless I n-needed to. I think-"

"Dean, I need to know where you are," Sam says.

There's something in Sammy's voice, something thick and oppressive. Dean doesn't understand it. He doesn't understand anything.

"Sam, something's wrong. I-I don't know-I don't-"

"Dean, where are you?" Sam asks, and all Dean hears now is the whip-crack of command.

"F-friendly Saugerties," he says, without thinking. Sam repeats the town name, but his voice is muffled now. Dean doesn't think his brother is talking to him anymore. Sam must be talking to someone on his end of the phone. "Is that Dad?" he asks.

"Upstate New York? You're still in New York?" Sam asks, now obviously speaking to Dean again. "Saugerties, New York?"

"It's not so f-friendly," Dean says, no longer aware that he's actually speaking.

"Dean, it's going to take me a couple hours to get there. You need to go someplace safe. Do you hear me? You need to go where I can find you but no one else can."

"The sun's nice," Dean says, slumping down on the park bench. There's water nearby. The sky is blue. He hears children playing. "It's nice," he mutters.

He closes his eyes and drops the phone.

oOo

He's lying on his side in the brush under some trees. His left foot is wet. A child stares at him with wide, blue eyes.

"Mister," she whispers. "Mister, I need my ball."

A big, red ball rests against Dean's hands. He tries to lift the toy and can't. Instead, he pushes it toward the girl; his fingers are numb and pointless.

The girl grabs the ball and smiles. She's missing one of her front teeth.

"Marcy, get away from there!" The calling voice is distant and almost disinterested. Distracted.

"That's my mom," the girl says. "I gotta go."

The girl runs off. She doesn't come back. Dean shivers violently and wishes he was sitting in the sun.

oOo

He's still under the bushes when he surfaces again. This time, Sam's familiar, bright eyes peer at him. It's darker than the last time he woke up, but that could just be Sammy's shadow looming.

"Where's the girl?"Dean asks.

"There is no girl," Sam says. "You're still not making sense."

"There was a girl," Dean says. He can't say anything else, though, because he's suddenly out of breath.

"Okay, Dean, it's okay," Sam says. He crouches down, grabs Dean's wrist, checks the weak pulse beating there.

Dean closes his eyes and almost drifts off. A hand patting his face brings him back.

"Cut it out, Sam," he says.

"I think you've lost blood," Sam says. "A lot of it. You need to stay awake. I don't want you going further into shock than you already are."

"Wha?" Dean has the strange hope that if he sits up, he'll understand better what Sammy's saying. He tries to pull himself up but can't. His tense muscles relax against his will.

"Just calm down, Dean," Sam says. He grabs a thick branch and puts it under Dean's legs. As blood plods its way to his brain-still slow, but now more effectively-Dean's vision clears a little.

"Sam?"

"Yeah, Dean. It's me."

"Where are we?"

"Some park," Sam says. "You hid in some brush. You're lucky no one found you, for Christ's sake. You're so close to that bench that if someone had sat there they would have seen you."

Vaguely Dean remembers falling off the bench and crawling into the brush. He remembers a girl, but not much else.

"How'd y-you find me?" Dean asks. He closes his eyes again and swallows back a ball of nausea.

"You called, and Bobby and I did some GPS tracking. Where'd you get the phone? Where have you been? It's been two weeks, and we haven't heard a thing. What did you do? Just walk out of the hospital?"

"What-what are you talking about, Sam?"

"Don't you remember? You were in the hospital after we dealt with that chupacabra. It messed up your right arm and shoulder, and the bite wounds ended up not healing right. I thought there was an infection and that you were going to lose the arm, so I dragged you to the hospital. You'd been there for three days when you just disappeared."

"Chupacabra?" Dean mutters, his tongue slipping on the word.

"You lost blood from the initial attack, but you've lost so much more now. We need to get you back to a hospital."

"No," Dean says, emphatically.

"Dean-"

"No," Dean repeats. He closes his eyes, his breath hitches, and he remembers.

oOo

He remembers pain and hot fever. He remembers being dragged from a bed and the painful pulling of tubes and wires.

He remembers happy, capering voices and scraps of conversation.

_"Hey, Winchester. You're going to make a tasty treat."_

_"He's so pretty."_

_"I wanna bite him all over."_

_"Me first." _

He remembers darkness with infrequent flares of light and pain. Then exhaustion and nausea and increasing weakness. He remembers loud music, breaking glass, and warped, spiny laughter.

He remembers the desire to hunt, to rend, to take back blood. A desire denied by weakness and pain.

He remembers taking the easy way out. Sneaking by, sneaking past, sneaking away.

And then...

...Sammy.

oOo

"They took you from the hospital?" Sam exclaims. "Vampires?"

"Think so," Dean says. His breath comes hard for a moment but then evens out.

"Dean, you've lost a lot of blood. Maybe we should risk it."

"No, Sam. No hospitals. I don't-I don't..."

"All right, Dean, all right," Sam says, laying a steadying hand on his brother's shoulder. "I get it." He looks at the sky with narrowed eyes. "It's dark enough now. I think we can go."

Dean thinks they should go, too, but he's pretty sure he's not able to. At least, not under his own steam.

"Sammy-"

"It's okay, Dean. I gotcha," Sam says, reaching down and pulling at his brother.

"Lift with you knees," Dean says, and chuckles with dry humor. His breath catches again, and he stops laughing.

The world spins and swoons as Sam fights him into a semi-standing position. Dean's afraid he might fall but then realizes that his little brother has a strong, reliable grip on him.

"When'd you get...s-so big?" he asks. His eyelids slowly droop, then close. Darkness and the sound of rushing falls start to take him away.

"A long time ago," Sam says.

Dean groans once, and then slackens in his brother's grasp.

He's gone from this place for now. When he wakes up, he'll be someplace else.

Someplace safe.

oOo

Deep in the Catskills, in a dark and wooded place, a shack burns. Inside, blood bubbles and spatters as fire heats and scorches. Littered here and there are the cooking corpses of decapitated vampire bodies.

In the distance, the vengeful roar of a fast-moving car echoes.


End file.
